According to Forbes data, over the last two years, the collective net worth of New York's 53 billionaires rose from $210 to $277 billion -- a 31 percent jump. In contrast, the city's entire municipal budget is now about $70 billion, meaning that the 53 wealthiest New Yorkers have about four times the city's combined annual spending on police, roads, schools, parks, social services, transportation, sanitation, and firefighters.
Median household annual income in New York is now $50,895 and a person working full-time at the minimum wage would earn $15,080. That means that those 53 billionaires now have as much money as five million average families and 17 million minimum wage workers.
The wealthiest New Yorkers pay less into the system than everyone else. According to the Fiscal Policy Institute, in 2010, the top one percent of earners in the city (households earning more than $567,253 annually), earned 37 percent of the city's income, and paid only 28 percent of the tax revenues. Yet the lowest 20 percent of households (earning below $9,131) earned the same percentage of the city's income as the percentage of the city's taxes they paid. The next lowest 20 percent (earning below $20,440) actually paid a greater share of taxes than their share of income.
People on the right are fond of the expression “class warfare” when anyone calls for the mobilisation of the oppressed working class. Well, we could use not just a little class warfare but a lot. We should be spoiling for a fight. Now’s the time for firebrands, rabble-rousers, and troublemakers. To the barricades, figuratively speaking, comrades.
Median household annual income in New York is now $50,895 and a person working full-time at the minimum wage would earn $15,080. That means that those 53 billionaires now have as much money as five million average families and 17 million minimum wage workers.
The wealthiest New Yorkers pay less into the system than everyone else. According to the Fiscal Policy Institute, in 2010, the top one percent of earners in the city (households earning more than $567,253 annually), earned 37 percent of the city's income, and paid only 28 percent of the tax revenues. Yet the lowest 20 percent of households (earning below $9,131) earned the same percentage of the city's income as the percentage of the city's taxes they paid. The next lowest 20 percent (earning below $20,440) actually paid a greater share of taxes than their share of income.
People on the right are fond of the expression “class warfare” when anyone calls for the mobilisation of the oppressed working class. Well, we could use not just a little class warfare but a lot. We should be spoiling for a fight. Now’s the time for firebrands, rabble-rousers, and troublemakers. To the barricades, figuratively speaking, comrades.
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